In Our View: Our Climate Is Changing

Any discussion about climate change should be required to start with a quote from Peter Goldmark, Washington’s Commissioner of Public Lands.

“Our fire season started a month ahead, our crops matured weeks ahead and the dry weather we usually get in August, we’ve had since May,” Goldmark told the New York Times earlier this month. “By heavens, if this isn’t a sign of climate change, then what is climate change going to bring?”

What, indeed? While many naysayers dispute the scientific consensus that the earth’s climate is changing and that human activity is partly to blame, Goldmark’s statement presents a challenge for those skeptics: How to explain obvious climate extremes? And what would real climate change look like?